Synopsis: In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.

Round-up: "Given what the world expects from Quentin Tarantino - the man, the myth, the pastiche-driven movie machine - his latest feature, 'Inglourious Basterds,' stands out for its seemingly low ambition," reports critic Eric Kohn for indieWIRE, going on to say that "The story of Nazi-hunting Jewish soldiers delivers on the colorful brand of unserious entertainment implied by the plot, but no matter how much extreme contextualization and heavily stylized techniques Tarantino introduced to the production, 'Inglorious Basterds' feels like a bubblegum sidedish to the heavy dinner plate of his career. While not intentionally a rudimentary project, it automatically becomes one by the limits of its design." Most critics, it seems, share Kohn's sense of disappointment with "Basterds" which doesn't, in their view, quite match the director's best work. "The film is by no means terrible but those things we think of as being Tarantino-esque, the long stretches of wickedly funny dialogue, the humor in the violence and outsized characters strutting across the screen, are largely missing," says The Hollywood Reporter's review. "Terrible" would seem to be The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw's assessment of the film, however. In his one-star review he rants: "Quentin Tarantino's cod-WW2 shlocker about a Jewish-American revenge squad intent on killing Nazis in German-occupied France is awful. It is achtung-achtung-ach-mein-Gott atrocious. It isn't funny; it isn't exciting; it isn't a realistic war movie, yet neither is it an entertaining genre spoof or a clever counterfactual wartime yarn. It isn't emotionally involving or deliciously ironic or a brilliant tissue of trash-pop references. Nothing like that." Finally, a more mixed appraisal of the film comes courtesy of Dave Calhoun writing for Time Out. He writes that while "Tarantino is mostly smart enough to let his usual, entertaining extravagances serve the story rather than the other way around... For all its shallow pleasures, there’s no getting away from the troubling theme of sadistic revenge at the heart of 'Inglourious Basterds', a theme that’s hard to take seriously in such a movie, about such a period of history."

Thompson on Hollywood
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Global investment bank Goldman Sachs is selling its stake in a number of Weinstein Company films, which means that Weinstein could begin profitting again from recent titles such as "Vicki Christina Barcelona" and "Inglourious Basterds."

Indiewire
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In a breath of fresh air from most other 2009 awards came via the International Cinephile Society today, who announced their nominees for the best in film for last year. Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" led the field with 10 nominations, followed by Joel & Ethan Coen's "A Serious Man," Kat...